Corrine's Discovery
by Wonder777
Summary: Corrine comes across one of her father's journals. What she discovers inside will change everything she knew about her life. Set within "Flowers In The Attic".


**_This is the first of a series of stories focusing on Corrine Foxworth-Winslow. Set during various times during the Dollanganger Saga (excluding Seeds of Yesterday, of course). I attempt to give a glimpse of the story from her side. Enjoy!_**

 ** _The Secrets of Corrine Series_**

 **Corrine's _Discovery_**

It was a long day for Corrine Foxworth-Winslow at her father's mansion. As he lay dying, she knew he had to kick off soon. With his immobility and bad heart, she knew it was his sheer will that kept him breathing. She had been up since before sunrise catering to his every whim. Everyday since returning to Foxworth Hall, she had to prove her loyalty to her father, hoping to get written back into his will after falling in love and eloping with his half brother, her uncle.

Their union produced four of the most beautiful children God had put on this earth. She brought them with her to this dreary place where she grew up in the dead of night. Malcolm Foxworth cursed her and Christopher with having deformed children. Cloven hooved feet and hunched backs that had no chance of redemption. Her mother and John Amos were the only other people who knew about them.

That was about two and a half years ago. She came back here, a widow with children in tow. No money or place to stay, her parents were the only ones left who could take them in, her best chance. But now she questions: _was it worth it bringing them here? Maybe leaving them with others would have been better than this_.

Now her children were becoming more distant. The twins see her more like a stranger, Cathy becoming more demanding for freedom. Corrine understood her daughter's anger. _Just a little longer_ , she thought. _Daddy dies in his sleep and I get the money. Then I can introduce them to Bart and we can escape this hellhole. Start a new life._

Bart Winslow, her second husband, was in town having dinner with some potential clients for his law firm. He knew about her first husband, but not the children. She had to keep that under wraps until the time was right. He had just started being Father's attorney when they met. His looks and smile charmed her, but when it came for them to date and eventually marry, Malcolm Foxworth gave his blessing. The one thing she forgot was that everything had a price, an attachment when it came to her and her father.

She had hoped to see her children one last time before bed, but it was interrupted by Olivia, her mother shows up, standing there in her grey dress with the button up collar and the ever present Bible in her hands. The woman was always stern faced, eyes ever roaming around like she was searching for demons in the room to drive out.

"I am guessing you're going up to the North Wing to see those spoiled brats." She says with a cold tone. "You were always too soft." She then turns and walks away. "Before you retire, say good night to your father." Then closes the door behind her.

Corrine was fuming at how her mother spoke to her, almost as if she despised her very existence. Like a sense of detachment was between them. She looked nothing like her mother, and certainly didn't have her hard, cold personality.

 ** _Chapter Two_**

She visits her children. Chris Jr., the future doctor. Cathy, the future dancer. Then the twins Carrie and Cory. They were all she had left outside of her parents. I'm doing this all for them, she thinks. The visit doesn't go well, Cathy slaps her in the face, wanting out. While her mother stood watch blaming her for not controlling the kids. The woman is like an annoying watchman, she thinks as they came down from there. The sting still lingered on her face.

Her mother retires to her own room just before they reach Daddy's room. She passes the bedroom where her father spent most of his time. He was pretty much immobile in recent days and rarely used the wheelchair. All his business was done over the phone or if someone came at his request. At the moment, he was being bathed by a nurse in the bathroom designed for someone who was disabled.

Then something catches her eye. A book sticking out of a drawer. It was the black leather journal he always kept. The one she always saw in his hand growing up. This or the leather covered Bible with his name printed on the front. How she loathed this book, curiosity took over. _He wouldn't miss this, he's had so many. One missing wouldn't matter._ Corrine slides it into her jacket just as her father is wheeled in. Freshly washed, his musk scented soap permeates the room.

"Father, I just wanted to say good night before retiring for the evening." She says giving him a kiss on the cheek. "Good night Corrine." was the best he could come up with considering he had a stroke not long after and it affected his speech.

Back in her room with the door locked, Corrine had finally gotten the chance to flip through the journal she found. Her father's handwriting was well known in the business world. But here, he was more personal, less business. Where he kept all his secrets.

She began on the first page. Here, the first entry for this volume was about the day Alicia Foxworth stepped foot in this place. _She was beautiful, no more than sixteen. And pregnant with my brother or sister. My father was beaming with pride by the way they looked at each other. Alicia married my father for his money and now I have to share MY inheritance with the spawn she carries._

Corrine always heard about Alicia growing up with her brothers Mal and Joel. Both were now dead, she would be the only one to inherit. Alicia was Christopher's mother, the man who was her first husband. By what she knew, after her husband died, Alicia had remarried, ended up widowed again, and when she was diagnosed with cancer, begged Daddy to take Christopher in. It was that moment he arrived and they met she fell in love, despite the fact he was her uncle. She continues to read on.

 _Everyday she was under this roof my infatuation of her grew. I wanted her as my own, Olivia was merely a instrument to produce heirs to carry on my name. Nothing more, nothing less. She's failed me in not giving me a daughter so as to project my disapproval of the female gender on. A way to get back at my mother._

Corrine was getting curious at this point. What did he mean? Did he cheat on Mother? There was something more to this...

 _ **Chapter Three**_

A knock at the door startles her, throwing the journal into a drawer under her "How to Create Your Own Embroidery Designs" book and slamming it."Come in." She says and the door opens. It was Bart, her husband, a little tipsy from wine and all tired out. "Hey honey," he says, pulling off the tie and striding towards the bed, "how was your evening?" He leans in and gives Corrine a passionate kiss.

"Fine dear, how was business?" She asks as he began to get amorous, "It went better than expected. I may have a new partner for the office." To Corrine, the journal would have to wait. She wanted time with her husband now. But the kids were never too far away in her thoughts...

The next few days, in between serving her father hand and foot and Mother always looming over her shoulder almost everywhere she went, Corrine managed to read more of the journal her father wrote. About Christopher being born, how he felt jealous of his half brother. His infatuation with Alicia growing.

 _Even after giving birth she was beautiful. Father is now always lingering over me, he must suspect something. That's why I couldn't get her alone, him or one of the servants are around her and my brother. How I long to have her, she's everything Olivia isn't._

On another day, Malcolm wrote, _Father found out I was peeking on Alicia naked. He was not happy at that. "She's my wife," he yells at me, "you're married, keep your eyes and hands off her. Or there will be Hell to pay boy." His words mean nothing to me..._

Corrine was shocked at some of these entries were here. Her father lusting for his stepmother, some of the maids, even talking about getting some of the loose women from town, blindfolding them before having them come here so he can have his way with them. She felt betrayed at her father's lusts, considering he always spouted religion, even building a chapel on the grounds and paying a preacher to perform services. What a hypocrite!

Then she came upon the most shocking entry. The one that would answer some of her questions.

 _I finally made my move on Alicia. We were in Mother's Swan Room when I had to have her. She screamed and fought, but I almost had her when my father came storming in, angry. Then he fell over, dead of a heart attack, but I didn't care, he's now in the ground and I have control of the family fortune. Sadly, I can't touch my brother's share, which was left in trust. But I will have Alicia, she will bear my daughter. Then Alicia and my brother will be banished from Foxworth Hall._

Reading this made Corrine sick to her stomach. But she read on.

 _I finally took Alicia, it was satisfying. She screamed and fought, but I made sure nobody was around to hear her. Thursdays the servants were in town and Olivia was out doing business for me. Everything went as planned. Now, she finally conceived. Olivia was not happy with what I did, but it didn't matter. Her and Alicia are nothing but tools to achieve my means anyway._

 _We have agreed to let Christopher stay here, but make him think his mother is out of town, telling him she needed medical treatment. Then while the kids are asleep, she comes back. Alicia will be shut away in room in the North Wing. She will be taken care of but nobody but Olivia and myself will know. Olivia will fake being with child to explain my coming bundle. Then after the baby is born, Alicia and Christopher will be thrown out._

Corrine was appalled, she was scared to continue, but does. The next entry that gets her attention is dated the day she was born.

 _Alicia had my daughter. She gave her up after a little persuasion from me. She signed papers never to come after my Corrine if her son was to come into his inheritance. Finally, I had a daughter. I can quell those desires that evoked lust in me watching my mother when I was young. And with my father out of the way, nothing can stop me._

Reading further, she saw his sick fantasies in writing. How he never wanted her to marry, be happy. Be just as miserable as he was. How he used religion as an excuse to hide the madness within. She looks so much like my dear mother. That feminine charm, the looks, it was like she was duplicated here. Seeing her stirs those carnal desires inside...

Corrine drops the book and runs to the toilet to vomit. _Her first husband and uncle was also her half brother?_ How could it be? Anger rose inside her, and after washing up, Corrine picks up the journal and walks to her father's room.

Slamming the door open with a loud bang, she tells the nurse to get her mother and leave her and Malcolm alone. He was on oxygen and looking weak. A recent bout with pneumonia made him a shell of his former self. He sees the leather bound journal in Corrine's hands and begins to panic. Olivia arrives, draped in gray and looking stern. "What is going on here?" She demands, "Corrine, what is that in your hands?"

"Daddy, you recognize this don't you?" Corrine waves the journal in front of him, "I've found this a fascinating and disgusting read lately." Then she opens it and begins to read aloud. Each word said makes Malcolm cringe. He made sure she never knew. All the rules he created, the ways to keep her isolated, it was all coming apart. She knew the truth!

"Now Daddy, why you are such a hypocrite. Lusting after women not your wife and raping your stepmother to have me?" She pronounced each word so clearly he could understand. "Everything you gave me had a price tag. That price, my eternal loyalty to you even after death. Screw my own happiness, it was all about YOU."

Malcolm looks at her, composing himself. He gave a grin that scared her a little. "Yes, you are right. At times you have shown a degree of intelligence. But you don't know who you're messing with. Say one word and I can have you thrown into an asylum for the insane and never heard from again."

Then he begins to clutch his chest. Olivia calls for a nurse and doctor while doing what she could to help. Corrine walked away to her room. Later she gets word her father was dead. She was finally free, or so she thought...

At the reading of the will, she learns there was a codicil added that if it was ever discovered she ever had children from her first marriage, or by her second husband, she loses it all. He had his last laugh, Malcolm knew about the kids in the North Wing. The same room where she was born.

Olivia tearfully confused that Corrine was not her biological child. Though she loved her as if Corrine was her own. "I was forced to do those things to the kids. By his orders, yes he did know. He asked me to hire detectives to find you and Christopher. Then when you came back here with the kids, it was his idea to lock away the 'devil's spawn' for life."

She began to cry. "I know God will judge me for my part in all this. Forgive me if you can in time." For once she showed a bit of emotion. Corrine was appalled by her actions. "John Amos told him about the kids and suggested he add the codicil. It was all his idea, him and your father. He told me to beat the kids and starve them."

Corrine looks at the woman who she called Mother and told her to get out. That she would find a way to take her children away from the curse of this place. To somewhere safe where they could have a chance of making it. "I want them out of here as much as you do." Olivia agreed there. "John Amos must never find out."

Corrine then began to devise ways of getting the kids out of the attic with help from Olivia. But the arsenic was all her idea. "Just make them a little sick. Then I can smuggle them out, wrap them in blankets and drop them off at a hospital anonymously. At least they would have a chance at life and I have the money. Bart would never know. And the children must never know the truth about their parents being half brother and half sister. Obsession with protecting her inheritance and her children would eventually take over her sanity.


End file.
